Ohio Youth Ministries

Jam nearly 5,000 screaming teenagers into a room with a great band and what do you get?
When I was first approached by the District Youth Director to help with this event, they had seen their attendance dropping year after year. They were eager to see a change in the event even though, due to waning registrations, they were on a tight budget. In our first meeting I looked at tapes of their previous years’ show and could see the reason for the dropping attendance. Their production values had dropped so low that the audience could not see or hear well enough to be involved in the event. I began to sketch an idea on a scrap of paper, and by the end of the meeting we had a plan. I went to work to fit their budget while still giving the production values that the show so desperately needed.
They were so eager for the upcoming conference that they sent my sketches out to their churches and watched their registrations soar! Two weeks before the event we were discussing plans for an overflow room because they were seeing the highest numbers ever and were afraid that they would no longer fit in their auditorium that normally seats five thousand. I went back to the drawing board to see how we could fit more in the already crowded theater.
The show was an amazing success! Each year afterward was a challenge to one-up the last. After seeing the success with the Youth department, the District has also had us help with their Men’s and Women’s conferences as well. Year after year we continued to breathe new life to great audiences.